Kickin' it.

I love lazy Sundays, lounging around the house, reading the paper while we enjoy a leisurely healthy breakfast. Yeah, right. In my dreams, Sundays are like every other morning, chaos at it's finest, without the added stress of getting to school on time. Or D and I get to listen to K tell us how bored she is. If we don't already have plans it's a mad scramble to make them, if we do have plans I drag my ass because I like to spend the day at home. This Sunday morning was different, K was at A's house on a sleepover and wasn't expected back until around noon. We stayed in bed until 11ish, it was the first time in over 6 years that we did that.

When she finally graced us with her presence she talked non stop about all that she did. It was cute, I already had the play by play from A but it was to listen to K tell it. We didn't have much time, K had some time to relax and then get ready for her very first karate tournament. She was really excited for that, she was entered in the leg sweep competition and after watching her do this for weeks I knew she was pretty good. She wanted to get there a little early to watch the little ones for a while. It was cool, we got to see some friends and watch their kids break boards and get their trophies. When it came time for K's group she took off and took a seat with her friends. D and I scrambled along with the other parents to get a good spot, it was like watching the paparazzi run after one of those Twilight stars. The momarazzi in me was stealth and I managed to get a bunch of great shots with my SLR while D got the whole thing on the Flip.

I was so proud of my little girl, she was great, her form and defense was stellar and she managed to stay standing while a girl bigger then her tried to get her on the ground. All the kids were amazing and they all took it in stride, even the ones who ended up on the floor. When K got her trophy the smile on her face was brighter than the golden statue. It was priceless. She knew everyone competing would get one but she did her very best and therefor had earned it. K also won a raffle and now has a credit at the dojo to buy snacks when I don't have an cash (which is always).

After the tournament she wanted to go to Menchies, her favorite snack place. We were more than happy to take her there, D and I were really proud. She started karate on May 4th and showed no signs of losing interest, in fact she gets more interested every day. SHe walked into Menchees wearing her gi and carrying her giant trophy, in fact she wouldn't take it out of her hands. SHe fell asleep on the ride home with it clutched in her tiny hands. I got a great picture of that. She even stayed asleep from the car back to the couch and stayed that way for a while. We had to wake her up to eat, shower and then back to bed. When I went to kiss her goodnight I felt something next to her, she has brought the trophy to bed. I convinced her that it might break if she rolled over on it (telling her she could hurt herself would be useless). She kept it next to her and kept her hand on it all night.


D and I were pretty tired too. We talked about how awesome K was. Not just because she's our kid but because she's honoring her commitments, she's honoring them so much she's inspired D to start taking Taekwondo. He has a yellow belt as well.

It's nice to inspire your children to do great things. It's wonderful when that child can become the inspiration for your own greatness.

Nice move Karate K!!

OSU!!

Date Night!

I think it's funny when they call a night out with your spouse a "date." We don't have too many of them around here, as I've mentioned before we have no family living close by and I don't trust many people with K. We have to either be creative or I have to allow for more sleepovers. Since I don't trust other parents those don't happen too often. I trust m bestie A implicitly and when the subject came up on on Thursday I agreed, for K and for D, I know he wanted some alone time with me.

It was a busy day too, K had karate at 10AM and then piano at 1PM, we came home and had a nice lunch together, made some cookies for K to bring along and then packed her up. She barely said goodbye to us, clearly she's not one of those kids that has issues with separation (like her mama). D and I stayed a while with A and her husband J but it clear that K wanted up out. We took off and had no idea what to do. Dinner was going to be at 8:30, I told D he should check out the brand new TJ Maxx that had just opened. It was close to A's house and if we went without K the damage could be kept at a minimum. I really wanted D to go and find some cool things, I always score at these stores and I was hoping he would to. I showed him the high end stuff in the women's department, not that I needed or wanted anything, I just wanted to show him how awesome the deals were. We lingered in that section long enough for D to find a cute dress (in a size 0) and these super cute jeans. He begged me to try both on, the jeans were actually in a bigger size so no problem there, the dress, uh sorry, size 0, really? He had to wait outside, they didn't want us in the room together (probably a good idea) I put the dress on first and shock of all shocks, it fit!! I didn't love it but almost bought it just because I could!! D liked it, it was a little small around the uh, chest area, but that could have been due to my undergarment. Anyway, I didn't really need it, I already have a collection of dresses waiting to be taken out so I moved on to the jeans, they were cute, I walked out to show D and by the smile on his face I knew he liked them. He insisted I not only get them but I also was to wear them on our "date." Cool. It made getting ready so much easier.

We finally made it up to the men's department and D was not impressed, I had to agree, it was pretty boring. He was happy to buy me some new pants though. We came home, made some mojitos and took our time getting ready. We were early but were seated right away. It was fun to be out with my man wearing new clothes, we held hands and enjoyed each other's company. It was a date! After dinner we thought about where to go, there was a cool bar I wanted to try and it was close. After driving around for a while looking for parking we gave up. I had another place I wanted to try. That place had better parking, we liked it already. The bar was awesome and there was live music, score. We found some seats at the end of the bar and ordered a few drinks and an olive plate, a favorite. It was great, the music was cool and the people didn't suck, always a plus. We took the same "date" vibe with us and had a lovely time. It was nice to be out like this again. I finally got why they call it "date night."

It felt like the night was just about D and I, sure we talked about K but mostly we just talked. We were M and D out for the night, alone. We were also M and D coming home to a house with a kid at a sleepover. I won't write about that, I will say it was awesome.

I never was one to kiss and tell :P

Band of Horses - Song of the week

Band Of Horses - Factory (on 'Later with Jools Holland')


I love this band. From the very first time I heard them I was hooked. D and I saw them twice last year and they were awesome. I know every word to every song on both their albums. I spent the summer with them constantly playing as my background music. The new CD came out a few weeks ago and it is beautiful. I have been listening non stop for days. I have a few favorite tracks and this is one of them. Enjoy. Hope you love it like I do!


FACTORY

The elevator in the hotel lobby has a lazy door
The man inside is going to a hotel room
He jumped out right after seeing just the very sight of me
Decided he better hike it to the second floor

It's temporary, this place I'm in
I permanently won't do this again
My belongings scattered all across the hotel floor

An hour later I was thinking it over by the snack machine
I thought about you in a candy bar
An hour later melon gum stuck between my teeth
I fell asleep to the greatest movie of the year

A man gets lonely for heavens sakes
Was wondering only what did you do today
The world is spinning round to an old sad song

It's coming down outside like I've never even seen before
I fell into some kind of sorry state
But looking back now I think it's finally time for me to laugh about it
Get my things together and find something to say

Well I feel awful and I believe that time gets wasted in this misery
And darling I don't ever wanna come back home

NEXT!

This is going to sound like one of my dad's blog posts, a rambling rant of my crappy day. Sorry. It didn't start off that way, I managed to get in a few errands before picking K up from school. She had a casting at 4PM, usually I would have picked her up early from hip hop but it was the last class so I let he stay for all of it. As soon as it was over we ran to the car, it was now 3PM and we needed to get to Hollywood in an hour. Not usually a big deal but I knew parking might be a problem, 60 minutes was really plenty of time to get there. Unless the traffic sucked. It sucked. It was awful, as soon as I got on the 10 it became a parking lot. Crap. I got off immediately and looked for a decent street to take across town. There was no such street, all the roads were jammed. Oh well, we'll just be late, it was so annoying!! I finally made it to the casting and I found a spot around the corner. We were met in the lobby (casting was in a hotel suite) and were told to wait. While we waited a bunch of other kids showed up. Great, I knew they had no sign in sheet and K would not be first in like she should have been. Whatever. I texted A and let her know we were going to be late, we had a scheduled playdate/dinner planned.

They finally came to gather us and of course didn't care about the first come first served rule. We were lined up in the hall with some other people that were already up there. They took the kids in 5 at a time and wanted parents to come as well (K usually rolls solo but they wanted everyone in the room). They met each kid individually and asked questions, they wanted to learn about each kid, that was cool. Until they got to my kid, they asked her age and if she had siblings, that's it. Clearly they weren't interested in her look (which is fine) and treated her as such (which is absolutely NOT fine). It was hard for me to keep quiet but I managed for the sake of the kids in the room. Then they sent us back to the hallway and told us to wait. A few minutes later they called 4 out of the 5 kids and gave them back their headshots and basically said "thanks but no thanks." I was floored, I had never seen anything like that. Again I kept my cool, I knew if I let it out it would have been bad and there were lots of kids around.

A few of us rode the elevator together and discussed the dissing we just received. I get that all kids are not perfect for all jobs but at least have the decency to treat them all the same, keep the frickin headshots and throw them away like everyone else does. I don't care that K didn't book the job, I care that they treated these kids like dirt. Immediately I fired off a nasty email to K's agent, at least I got an apology from her.

When I got to A's house the first thing I did was put the whole experience on Facebook, I have a nice network of fellow stagemoms, agents, photographers and directors and I wanted them to hear what happened. A few exhales and a glass of Shiraz made me feel better. I was amongst friends and my daughter was happy and playing with her buds.

When we got home I checked my email, I had a bunch of inquiries about my Facebook post, a few people wanted to know who the audition was for, I didn't say so in my post because it would have been unprofessional, and I had enough of that today! I did tell all who asked, but privately. If that's the way they treated kids at audition it's a good indication that the job will probably go the same way. I was fully supported by my stagemom army.

D was out with our friend R and I had the house to myself, K has passed out immediately. I didn't do much, played on the interwebs a bit, watched Keith and Rachel, tried to get in some reading. D came home with R and we all had a drink together and discussed the issues of the world. After discussing some of the heavier topics the anger I had from the audition subsided and was redirected back to the Gulf once again.

I know that K loves this business and I love to support her. Seeing any kind mistreatment makes me second guess even doing this at all but I was reminded by my wise little child that "sometimes people at auditions are stupid, who wants to work with those people?"

Words of wisdom from the 6 year old pro.

Next!

Another POV

I decided to share this post from my dad's blog (I think the apple barely fell off our family tree), it gives a different perspective of my childhood (even though the story is the same). My dad and I have a completely different style but share the same tolerance for bullshit as well as a fondness for swearing.

Enjoy!

Cynical Ridiculous and Pathetic (CRaP) aka CRaPUSA: Ex-Wife from Hell............For Real

In today's NY Post, an outraged judge sent a LI mom to jail for trying to drive a wedge between her ex-husband and their 2 daughters, keeping them apart for weeks at a time and even claiming he groped one of them. When her ex-husband was scheduled to visit the girls, she would deliberately plan trips to the theater or other last minute family outings. It goes on and on, but bottom line is this bitch was sentenced to 6 weekends in the slammer for this terrible behavior. (Ex-Wife from Hell -read the article/link}
Normally I would just laugh at something like this and say to myself that I am really happy. I can't do that. I really can't do that because I am still seething from reading this. My blood is boiling and I want to kill my ex-wife now more than I ever imagined. (Normally I only want to kill her a little, but now it is up really high). I have been so pissed today that I took my son to lunch at a local strip club to try and forget how pissed I was.
When I got divorced from wife # 1 (starter marriage), my 2 girls were pretty young. In fact they were around 6 and 8. I so looked forward to those weekend visits and tried to plan everything that was humanly possible considering I was making almost no money then, and most of that was going to alimony and child support. It didn't matter because loving them and looking forward to the weekends was worth everything. We would go on picnics, parks, cheap restaurants, museums, movies, and basically anything that was free or close to free. We spent lots of time in my apartment in the City, because there were always street fairs and plenty of places to walk. Despite the constant downer of taking them back on Sunday evening, it was pretty good..........Until my ex got re-married. Her new husband, Adolph Hitler (who I never met, but was ready to murder), managed to completely make things a living hell for them. In fact, my daughter wrote a wonderful blog explaining all of that in detail, which was even new to me.........Then it sort of began....I would go to pick the girls up on a Saturday and my ex would tell me on the intercom some excuse of many. Either they had to visit someone, they did not want to see me, they were at one of her relatives and on and on. I would call and she would not let me speak to them either saying they did not want to speak or they were doing homework, or not there, or some other lame excuse. But anyway, the days became weeks, the weeks months, and before I knew it years had passed without seeing them.
I got a lawyer and took the case to a judge, who ruled against me for whatever reason. All that remained was sending cards on a regular basis and trying to call. But then, out of the blue, my daughter M called me from the hospital where she was having her tonsils removed. That was wonderful, but I later found out she got in trouble for getting out of bed. There were a few secret phone calls after that. In fact I had to sneak into her public school graduation, because I was not allowed to see them. Eventually all of that ended and I built a great relationship back with my oldest daughter. It is funny how you remember only certain things about the past.
I never really gave any of this much thought as I got older. I certainly do feel the pain that was caused to the girls, especially due to the fact they were the ones who suffered the most. They were young and I am sure found the entire situation hard to deal with. They had to live with this asshole who I guess was really terrible. They had to endure the ignorance of their mother who let all this happen. I have moved forward all these years and never really thought about the cause and effect of all of this crap...........................Until Today..............Now the anger for my ex-fucken wife is at 100%.......I am able to close my eyes now and picture her spending 6 weekends in prison, even now.

Ouch

So I had to go back to the dentist today for the work I talked about here. Of course I made the appointment the same day that K was supposed to get a "Student of the Month" award and I couldn't cancel, they give me too much shit for that. Luckily the assembly started at 8:25AM and my appointment started at 9:30AM, I called them yesterday to tell them I'd be late and why, how could they have a problem with that? They didn't, the receptionist (who is more like a dental hitman) told me not to worry about being tardy and even called me on my cell this morning to let me know that the dentist was running late and I should take my time. I was relieved and didn't have to rush, I was also freaked out, it meant he had blocked a few hours for me and I would be there forever. Crap.

I was a little uptight this morning, knowing what my day was going to bring but seeing K's happy face during the assembly made my morning. She even ran up and kissed me goodbye and told me to be brave, I promised her I would be. I didn't even linger at the school to avoid the inevitable, I made it to the office on time and before my dentist. I asked the assistant how long she thought it would take today and she said "not long" but I didn't believe her, if the chair had restraints she might have told me the truth. Before he could even start she had to take impressions, anyone who has ever gone through that knows how awful it is. Not only did she have to take them of the lower right (where the work was being done) but because my bite is not the greatest she had to take a full upper as well. Good thing I'm not a breakfast girl. Yuk!!

After that pleasant experience the dentist was ready to give me about 50 shots of Novocaine, he wanted to make sure I didn't feel a thing. I reiterated to him that my dental issues had nothing to do with pain, regardless, he thought it would help me. It wasn't bad, the shots hurt a little and soon I couldn't feel a thing. He told me to close my eyes and relax. yeah right, not only was that impossible but the classical music that had been playing had been replaced with love songs by Madonna. That was the real torture.

When I go to these appointments I just have him tell me what needs to be done, I do not need a step by step analysis, today it was a long one, I don't know exactly what was done but it involved lots of drilling (!). Thankfully he gave me a few breaks. Holding my mouth open for that long without yelling at someone is not something I'm used to doing. Anyway, after what seemed like hours he was done. He put on a temp until next Thursday and told me to be careful when chewing on the right side. Uh, no problem, after listening for hours to whatever he did I didn't think I would ever be able to eat again. I took off quickly, I needed to get home and change before I went to pick K up from school, I had that dentist office smell on my clothes and needed them off immediately.

By the time we got home the Novocaine was just wearing off, suddenly I felt like I was hit in the face by a hammer. I just retreated to the couch while K watched Food Network, that's when the headache started and I realized I had not eaten anything all day, that sucks. I was not able to take anything on an empty stomach and I had nothing in my house that I could eat. I called D, thankfully he wasn't going to be late, he stopped off at the store to pick up dinner and some soup for me. I felt better after eating and was able to take some meds, did I write that I am allergic to aspirin and ibuprofen? Yeah, sucks to be me when you don't feel great. I still had some Tylenol with codeine left over from a surgery I had a few months ago. It worked like a charm and I was able to finally rid myself of the awful mouth and head pain.

Dealing with this around every six months is not fun, and there's nothing I can do about it, genetically I lost that lottery. Just by going and enduring it all assures that it won't get worse for me. That doesn't make it any better though.

At least after next Thursday I get a few months off.

I hope.

ouch

More than words

Cool song, not a favorite of mine but I liked it when it came out. I knew enough about the band to know the rest of the album was quite different from the radio friendly hit. Today as I was strolling through Ralph's on my typical Monday food buying excursion I heard this song. At first I was taken back to 1990, I didn't stay there for very long, somehow I got lost in the lyrics:

Saying I love you
Is not the words I want to hear from you
It's not that I want you
Not to say, but if you only knew
How easy it would be to show me how you feel
More than words is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
Cos I'd already know

What would you do if my heart was torn in two
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real
What would you say if I took those words away
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying I love you

More than words

Now I've tried to talk to you and make you understand
All you have to do is close your eyes
And just reach out your hands and touch me
Hold me close don't ever let me go
More than words is all I ever needed you to show
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
Cos I'd already know

What would you do if my heart was torn in two
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real
What would you say if I took those words away
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying I love you

More than words

I almost cried right there in front of the giant package of beef ribs I was picking out. The words were dead on, it's what I always tell D: actions, not words. Although I do love those words so. I started thinking as I aimlessly strolled the aisles of my supermarket, listening to Nuno's gorgeous acoustic guitar work. For years I was waiting for the actions and not listening to the words, to me they were worth as much alone. What a fool. I was so angry, I let that emotion guide me, waiting for something that wasn't possible. I love my husband, he is many things, a mind reader isn't one of them. All of those "I love yous" were never fully appreciated. How sad. I let anger take take the place of love for way too long. We both distanced ourselves from each other and came close to living basically as roommates. These feelings culminated into an overwhelming feeling of joy. Joy because I realized the mistakes of my actions, joy that D did as well, joy from the second chance we received and joy that we get to spend a wonderful life together.

I finished up my shopping and ran out the store, the music quickly changed and I have a very strong reaction to awful bands like Hootie and the Blowfish. When I came home I put away the groceries and texted D:

M: I heard that Extreme song "more than words" in ralphs today and it made me think of you and how much I love you. I can't believe how close we got to not feeling this way. I apologize for my distance and coldness in the past, anger should never take the place of love

D: Ur amazing - that u could listen to that whole song knowing how much it sucks for you and still have positive thoughts toward me makes me so happy in a way that is truly more than words can say :)

M: It was a very romantic moment for me. The song is actually perfect for us

D: U r sweet - I've actually always liked extreme and that song :)

M: I know

D: My little headbanger :)

M: \m/ \m/

It's funny how much I live through music, this song which once had no meaning to me suddenly took on a new life, 20 years after first hearing it. Sorry you all have to read yet another love letter to my husband, this one was unintentional. It's been a difficult few weeks, watching the news on the Gulf oil spill has brought me to a place I am uncomfortable with, an anger that has no direction or outlet, anything positive I just have to go with.

I'm actually not sorry, just very, very grateful.

More than words.